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118-458: The Germans studied the Siege of Port Arthur , where heavy artillery had been unable to destroy defensive structures like barbed wire and bunkers. The German Military Ingenieurkomitee ("Engineer committee") began working with Rheinmetall to study the problem in 1907. The solution they developed was a short-barrelled rifled muzzle-loading mortar for mine shell ammunition, built in three sizes. In 1910,

236-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

354-479: A company of engineers, a few sailors and a battery of artillery. On September 18, Japanese General Kodama visited General Nogi for the first time, and drew his attention to the strategic importance of 203 Meter Hill. Nogi directed the first infantry assault against the hill on September 20, but found its fortifications impenetrable to Japanese artillery and was forced to retreat by September 22 with over 2500 casualties. He then resumed his attempts to break through

472-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

590-587: A few days. The ease of his victory during the previous conflict, and overconfidence by the Japanese General Staff in its ability to overcome improved Russian fortifications, led to a much longer campaign and far greater losses than expected. The siege of Port Arthur saw the introduction of much technology used in subsequent wars of the 20th century (particularly in World War I ) including massive 28 cm howitzers that fired 217-kilogram (478-pound) shells with

708-755: A garrison in Port Arthur, led the surviving bulk of his army of 120,000 men north to join Marshal Oyama at the Battle of Mukden . Russian land forces in the course of the siege suffered 31,306 casualties, of whom at least 6,000 were killed. Lower figures such as 15,000 killed, wounded, and missing are sometimes claimed. At the end of the siege, the Japanese captured a further 878 army officers and 23,491 other ranks; 15,000 of those captured were wounded. The Japanese also captured 546 guns and 82,000 artillery shells. In addition

826-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

944-454: A handful of defenders still alive on the summit. The Russians launched two counter-attacks to retake the hill, both of which failed, and by 17:00, 203 Meter Hill was securely under Japanese control. For Japan, the cost of capturing this landmark was great, with over 8,000 dead and wounded in the final assault alone, including most of the IJA 7th Division. For Nogi, the cost of capturing 203 Meter Hill

1062-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

1180-476: A pair of land-based 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns, and was carried on intermittently until August 19, 1904. The Japanese fleet also participated in shore bombardment, while in the northeast the army prepared to attack the two semi-isolated hills protruding from the outer defense perimeter: 600-foot (180 m) high Takushan (Big Orphan Hill) and the smaller Hsuaokushan (Little Orphan Hill). These hills were not heavily fortified, but had steep slopes and were fronted by

1298-562: A prolonged artillery bombardment of the town and those parts of the harbor within range of his guns. Nogi attempted yet another mass "human wave" assault on 203 Meter Hill on October 29, 1904 intending the hill to be a present for the Meiji Emperor's birthday. However, aside from seizing some minor fortifications, the attack failed after six days of hand-to-hand combat, leaving Nogi with the deaths of an additional 124 officers and 3,611 men and no victory. The onset of winter did little to slow

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1416-502: A protracted siege . On August 25, 1904, the day after Nogi's last assault had failed, Marshal Ōyama Iwao engaged the Russians under General Aleksey Kuropatkin at the Battle of Liaoyang . Having failed to penetrate the Port Arthur fortifications by direct assault, Nogi now ordered sappers to construct trenches and tunnels under the Russian forts in order to explode mines to bring down

1534-418: A range of 8 kilometers (5.0 miles), rapid-firing light howitzers , Maxim machine guns , bolt-action magazine rifles, barbed wire entanglements, electric fences , arc lamp , searchlights , tactical radio signalling (and, in response, the first military use of radio jamming ), hand grenades , extensive trench warfare , and the use of modified naval mines as land weapons. The Russian forces manning

1652-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

1770-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

1888-448: A team of six horses, compared with a single horse for the LMW; additionally, the LMW could be moved around the battlefield by four men. The minenwerfer was cheaper, costing only one-seventh as much as the artillery gun, as did its ammunition. Since the muzzle velocity, and thus firing shock, of minenwerfers was low, a variety of explosives that would usually be unsuitable for use in artillery

2006-425: A thousand 500 lb (230 kg) shells from the 11-inch (280 mm) howitzers were fired in a single day to support this attack. The Japanese reached as far as the Russian line of barbed wire entanglements by daybreak and held their ground throughout the following day, November 29, while their artillery kept the defenders busy by a continuous bombardment. Nonetheless, the Japanese forces suffered serious losses, as

2124-800: A total of 160 minenwerfers . They were used successfully in Belgium at Liège and Namur , and against the French fortress of Maubeuge . After a few months when trench warfare started, the German infantry began calling for short-range weapons, and the minenwerfer entered the battle. Before long Allied forces were demanding similar devices. A captured minenwerfer was taken to the Royal Artillery Woolwich establishment in London in November 1914 and 100 copies rushed to

2242-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

2360-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of

2478-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

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2596-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

2714-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

2832-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

2950-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

3068-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

3186-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

3304-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

3422-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

3540-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

3658-646: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as

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3776-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

3894-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

4012-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

4130-603: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered

4248-459: The Battle of the Yellow Sea . On August 11, 1904, the Japanese sent an offer of temporary cease-fire to Port Arthur, so the Russians could allow all non-combatants to leave under guarantee of safety. The offer was rejected, but the foreign military observers all decided to leave for safety on August 14, 1904. At noon on August 13, 1904, General Nogi launched a photo reconnaissance balloon from

4366-455: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

4484-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

4602-597: The Treaty of Portsmouth , which ended the war. The loss of the war in 1905 led to major political unrest in Imperial Russia (see: Russian Revolution of 1905 ). At the end of the war, Nogi made a report directly to Emperor Meiji during a Gozen Kaigi . When explaining battles of the siege of Port Arthur in detail, he broke down and wept, apologizing for the 56,000 lives lost in that campaign and asking to be allowed to kill himself in atonement. Emperor Meiji told him that suicide

4720-716: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

4838-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

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4956-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

5074-571: The Chi-Kuan Battery. The Russian defensive positions on 174 Meter Hill itself were held by the 5th and 13th East Siberian Regiments, reinforced by sailors, under the command of Colonel Nikolai Tretyakov , a veteran of the Battle of Nanshan . Just as he had done at the Battle of Nanshan, Tretyakov, despite having his first line of trenches overrun, tenaciously refused to retreat and held control of 174 Meter Hill despite severe and mounting casualties. On

5192-449: The Guards, was sunk by Russian cruisers on June 15, 1904. The massive 11-inch howitzers could throw a 227-kilogram (500.4-pound) shell over 9 kilometers (5.6 miles), and Nogi at last had the firepower necessary to make a serious attempt against the Russian fortifications. The huge shells were nicknamed "roaring trains" by the Russian troops (for the sound they made just before impact), and during

5310-534: The Imperial Japanese Navy. Following the loss of the Pacific Fleet, the rationale for holding onto Port Arthur was questioned by Stoessel and Alexander Fok in a council on December 8, 1904, but the idea of surrender was rejected by the other senior officers. Japanese trench and tunnel warfare continued. With the death of General Kondratenko on December 15, 1904, at Fort Tongchikuan , Stoessel appointed

5428-447: The Japanese front-line forces, but officially maintained the despondent Nogi in nominal command. The battle continued throughout the following days with very heavy hand-to-hand combat with control of the summit changing hands several times. Finally, at 10:30 on December 5, following another massive artillery bombardment during which Russian Colonel Tretyakov was severely wounded, the Japanese managed to overrun 203 Meter Hill, finding only

5546-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

5664-442: The Japanese were forced back, leaving the ground covered with their dead and wounded. The battle at 203 Meter Hill continued for several more days, with the Japanese gaining a foothold each day, only to be forced back each time by Russian counter-attacks. By the time General Nogi abandoned the attempt, he had lost over 3,500 men. The Russians used the respite to begin further strengthening the defenses on 203 Meter Hill, while Nogi began

5782-529: The Japanese. Gaining these two hills cost the Japanese 1,280 killed and wounded. The Japanese Army complained bitterly to the Navy about the ease with which the Russians were able to obtain naval fire support; in response the Japanese Navy brought in a battery of 12-pounder guns, with a range sufficient to ensure that there would be no recurrence of a Russian naval sortie. The loss of the two hills, when reported to

5900-418: The Japanese. On the same day, Stoessel and Fok sent a message to a surprised General Nogi, offering to surrender. None of the other senior Russian staff had been consulted, and notably Smirnov and Tretyakov were outraged. The surrender was accepted and signed on January 5, 1905, in the northern suburb of Shuishiying . With this, the Russian garrison was taken into captivity. Civilians were allowed to leave, and

6018-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

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6136-422: The Russian defenders were well positioned to use hand grenades and machine guns against the tightly packed mass of Japanese soldiers. On November 30, a small party of Japanese succeeded in planting the Japanese flag at the summit of the hill, but by the morning of December 1, the Russians had successfully counterattacked. Still retaining the authority to replace Nogi if necessary, Kodama assumed temporary command of

6254-425: The Russian defenders. Japanese casualties were officially 4,000 men, but unofficially perhaps twice as high. Russian General Roman Kondratenko took the precaution of stationing snipers to shoot any of his front line troops attempting to abandon their positions . At 08:30 on November 28, with massive artillery support, Japanese troops again attempted an assault up the sides of both Akasakayama and 203 Meter Hill. Over

6372-623: The Russian fortifications on the main defense perimeter from November 17–24, with a general assault planned for the night of November 26. Coincidentally, this was the same day that the Russian Baltic Fleet was entering the Indian Ocean. The assault contained a forlorn hope attack by 2600 men (including 1200 from the newly arrived IJA 7th Division ) led by General Nakamura Satoru , but the attack failed, with direct frontal assaults on both Fort Erhlung and Fort Sungshu once again beaten back by

6490-477: The Russian officers were given the choice of either going into prisoner-of-war camps with their men or being given parole conditional on taking no further part in the war. The Japanese were astounded to find that a huge store of food and ammunition remained in Port Arthur, which implied that Stoessel had surrendered while still able to hold out for a long time. Stoessel, Fok and Smirnov were court-martialed on their return to St Petersburg . Nogi, after leaving

6608-503: The Russian ships within range. On December 5, 1904, the battleship Poltava was sunk, followed by the battleship Retvizan on December 7, 1904, and the battleships Pobeda and Peresvet and the cruisers Pallada and Bayan on December 9, 1904. The battleship Sevastopol , although hit 5 times by the howitzer shells, managed to move out of range of the guns. Stung by the Russian Pacific Fleet having been sunk by

6726-407: The Russians lost their entire fleet based at Port Arthur, which was either sunk or interned. The Japanese captured 8,956 seamen. The Japanese army casualties were later officially listed as 57,780 casualties (killed, wounded and missing), of whom 14,000 were killed. In addition 33,769 became sick during the siege (including 21,023 with beriberi ). The Japanese navy lost 16 ships in the course of

6844-584: The Russians over 1,000. The assaults on the other sections of the Russian line had also cost the Japanese heavily, but with no results and no ground gained. When Nogi finally called off his attempt to penetrate the Wantai Ravine on August 24, 1904, he had only 174 Meter Hill and the West and East Pan-lung to show for his loss of more than 16,000 men. With all other positions remaining firmly under Russian control, Nogi at last decided to abandon frontal assaults in favor of

6962-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

7080-566: The Ta River, which had been dammed by the Russians to provide a stronger obstacle. The hills commanded a view over almost a kilometer of flat ground to the Japanese lines, and it was thus essential for the Japanese to take these hills to complete their encirclement of Port Arthur. After pounding the two hills from 04:30 until 19:30, General Nogi launched a frontal infantry assault, which was hampered by heavy rain, poor visibility and dense clouds of smoke. The Japanese were able to advance only as far as

7198-628: The Ta-ho River in the east, and Namakoyama, Akasakayama, 174-Meter Hill, 203-Meter Hill and False Hill in the west. All of these hills were heavily fortified. Approximately 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) behind this defensive line was the original stone Chinese wall, which encircled the Old Town of Lushun from the south to the Lun-ho River at the northwest. The Russians had continued the line of the Chinese wall to

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7316-520: The Tsar , caused him to consider the safety of the Russian Pacific Fleet trapped at Port Arthur, and he sent immediate orders to Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft , in command of the fleet after the death of Admiral Stepan Makarov , to join the squadron at Vladivostok . Vitgeft put to sea at 08:30 on August 10, 1904, and engaged the waiting Japanese under Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō in what was to become known as

7434-518: The Waterworks Redoubt, which they attacked and captured on September 19, 1904. Thereafter they successfully took the Temple Redoubt, while another attacking force was sent against both Namakoyama and 203 Meter Hill. The former was taken that same day, but on 203 Meter Hill the Russian defenders cut down the dense columns of attacking troops with machine-gun and cannon fire. The attack failed, and

7552-462: The Wolf Hills, which the Russians unsuccessfully attempted to shoot down. Nogi was reportedly very surprised at the lack of coordination of the Russian artillery efforts, and he decided to proceed with a direct frontal assault down the Wantai Ravine, which, if successful, would carry Japanese forces directly into the heart of the city. Given his previous high casualty rate and his lack of heavy artillery,

7670-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

7788-505: The army and not by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and with a direct order from Tokyo that the Sevastopol was not to be allowed to escape, Admiral Togo sent in wave after wave of destroyers in six separate attacks on the sole remaining Russian battleship. After 3 weeks, the Sevastopol was still afloat, having survived 124 torpedoes fired at her while sinking two Japanese destroyers and damaging six other vessels. The Japanese had meanwhile lost

7906-461: The best possible use of the natural terrain. However, many of the redoubts and fortifications were still unfinished, as considerable resources were either in very short supply or had been diverted to improving the fortifications at Dalny , further north on the Liaodong Peninsula . The outer defense perimeter of Port Arthur consisted of a line of hills, including Hsiaokushan and Takushan near

8024-409: The continuing unavailability of the 3rd Army's manpower to be intolerable, and sent General Kodama Gentarō to compel Nogi to take drastic action, or else relieve him of command. Kodama returned to visit Nogi again in mid-November, but decided to give him one last chance. After arduous sapping work and an artillery assault with the new Armstrong 11-inch siege guns, mines were exploded underneath some of

8142-440: The cruiser Novik . Nogi ordered his men to press on regardless of casualties. Despite some confusion in orders behind the Russian lines, which led to some units abandoning their posts, numerous Russian troops held on tenaciously. The Japanese finally managed to overrun the Russian positions mostly through sheer superiority in numbers. Takushan was captured at 20:00, and the following morning, August 9, 1904, Hsiaokushan also fell to

8260-497: The cruiser Takasago to a mine outside the harbor. On the night of January 2, 1905, after Port Arthur surrendered, Captain Nikolai Essen of the Sevastopol had the crippled battleship scuttled in 30 fathoms (55  m ) of water by opening the sea cocks on one side, so that the ship would sink on its side and could not be raised and salvaged by the Japanese. The other six ships were eventually raised and recommissioned into

8378-405: The decision created controversy in his staff; however, Nogi was under orders to take Port Arthur as quickly as possible. After sending an immediately refused message to the garrison of Port Arthur demanding surrender, the Japanese began their assault at dawn on August 19, 1904. The main thrust was directed at 174 Meter Hill, with flanking and diversionary attacks along the line from Fort Sung-shu to

8496-459: The defenses of Port Arthur under Major-General Baron Anatoly Stoessel consisted of almost 50,000 men including the crews of the Russian warships in port (the total population of Port Arthur at the time was around 87,000) and 506 guns. He also had the option of removing the guns from the fleet to bolster the land defenses. Russian improvements to the defences of Port Arthur included a multi-perimeter layout with overlapping fields of fire and making

8614-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

8732-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure

8850-399: The following day, August 20, 1904, Tretyakov asked for reinforcements but, just as at Nanshan, none were forthcoming. With more than half of his men killed or wounded and with his command disintegrating as small groups of men fell back in confusion, Tretyakov had no choice but to withdraw, and 174 Meter Hill was overrun by the Japanese; it had cost the Japanese some 1,800 killed and wounded, and

8968-442: The fortifications at Port Arthur in other locations, cumulating in a six-day general assault at the end of October, which cost the Japanese a further 124 officers and 3611 men. News of this defeat inflamed Japanese popular opinion against Nogi. General Yamagata Aritomo urged his court-martial , but Nogi was saved from this only through the unprecedented personal intervention of Emperor Meiji . However, Field Marshal Oyama Iwao found

9086-419: The forward slopes of both hills, and many soldiers drowned in the Ta River. Even night attacks suffered unexpectedly high casualties, as the Russians used powerful searchlights to expose the attackers to artillery and machine-gun cross-fire. Undeterred, Nogi resumed artillery bombardment the following day, August 8, 1904, but his assault stalled again, this time due to heavy fire from the Russian fleet led by

9204-400: The front by Christmas . By mid-1916 there were 281 heavy, 640 medium, and 763 light minenwerfers in service, with 4,300 new weapons being produced every month. With this powerful armory of short-range artillery, the German forces were able to reach across No Man's Land and bring a punishing fire to bear on any target which presented itself. When chemical warfare arrived, the minenwerfer

9322-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

9440-449: The guns' period at Port Arthur over 35,000 of these shells were fired. The Armstrong howitzers had originally been installed in shore batteries in forts overlooking Tokyo Bay and Osaka Bay , and had been intended for anti-ship operations. While the Japanese set to work in the sapping campaign, General Stoessel continued to spend most of his time writing complaining letters to the Tsar about lack of cooperation from his fellow officers in

9558-412: The harbor would have enabled the Japanese to control the harbor and to fire on the Russian fleet sheltering there. This fact was only brought to Nogi's attention when he was visited by General Kodama Gentarō , who immediately saw that the hill was the key to the whole Russian defense. By mid-September the Japanese had dug over eight kilometers (5 miles) of trenches and were within 70 meters (230 feet) of

9676-399: The harbor. The name "203-Meter Hill" is a misnomer, as the hill consists of two peaks (203 meters and 210 meters high, and 140 meters apart) connected by a sharp ridge. It was initially unfortified; however, after the start of the war the Russians realized its critical importance and built a strong defensive position. As well as the natural strength of its elevated position with steep sides, it

9794-409: The incompetent Fok in his place. On December 18, 1904, the Japanese exploded an 1,800-kilogram (3,968-pound) mine under Fort Chikuan, which fell that night. On December 28, 1904, Fort Erhlung was also undermined and destroyed. On December 31, 1904, a series of mines were exploded under Fort Sungshu, the sole surviving major fortress, which surrendered that day. On January 1, 1905, Wantai finally fell to

9912-407: The intensity of the battle. Nogi received additional reinforcements from Japan, including 18 more Armstrong 11-inch (280 mm) howitzers, which were manhandled from the railway by teams of 800 soldiers along an eight-mile (13 km)-long narrow gauge track that had been laid expressly for that purpose. These howitzers were added to the 450 other guns already in place. One innovation of the campaign

10030-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,

10148-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

10266-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

10384-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

10502-462: The largest of these was introduced as the 25 cm schwerer Minenwerfer (abbreviated "sMW"; English: "25 cm (9.8 in) heavy mine launcher"). Despite weighing only 955 kg (2,105 lb), it had the same effect on targets as the 28 cm (11 in) and 30.5 cm (12.0 in) mortars, which weighed ten times as much. At the outbreak of the First World War , the German army had

10620-522: The navy. The garrison in Port Arthur was starting to experience serious outbreaks of scurvy and dysentery due to the lack of fresh food. Nogi now shifted his attention to the Temple Redoubt and the Waterworks Redoubt (also known as the Erhlung Redoubt) to the east, and to 203 Meter Hill and Namakoyama to the west. Strangely, at this time neither Nogi nor Stoessel seem to have realized the strategic importance of 203 Meter Hill: its unobstructed views of

10738-563: The numerous advantages of the minenwerfer in trench warfare, production was stepped up and, by 1918, the numbers had increased dramatically to 1,234 heavy, 2,361 medium and 12,329 light minenwerfer . A 38 cm (15 in) calibre sehr schwerer Minenwerfer (ssMW; English: "very heavy mine launcher") was also developed. Siege of Port Arthur Naval battles Land battles The siege of Port Arthur ( Japanese : 旅順攻囲戦 , Ryojun Kōisen ; Russian: Оборона Порт-Артура , Oborona Port-Artura , August 1, 1904 – January 2, 1905)

10856-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

10974-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

11092-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

11210-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

11328-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

11446-606: The siege, including two battleships and four cruisers. There were higher estimates of Japanese army casualties at the time such as 94,000 -110,000 killed, wounded, and missing, though these were written without access to the Japanese Medical History of the War. The capture of Port Arthur and the subsequent Japanese victories at the Battle of Mukden and Tsushima gave Japan a dominant military position, resulting in favorable arbitration by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in

11564-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

11682-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

11800-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

11918-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

12036-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

12154-472: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

12272-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

12390-488: The walls. By now, Nogi had also been reinforced by additional artillery and 16,000 more troops from Japan, which partially compensated for the casualties sustained in his first assaults. However, the major new development was the arrival of the first battery of huge 11-inch (280 mm) siege howitzers , replacing those lost when the transport Hitachi Maru , loaded with a battalion of the First Reserve Regiment of

12508-550: The west and south, enclosing the approaches to the harbor and the New Town of Port Arthur with concrete forts, machine gun emplacements, and connecting trenches. General Stoessel withdrew to Port Arthur on July 30, 1904. Facing the Russians was the Japanese Third Army , about 150,000 strong, backed by 474 artillery guns, under the command of General Baron Nogi Maresuke . The shelling of Port Arthur began on August 7, 1904, by

12626-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

12744-499: Was a highly convenient method of delivering gas. The first German use of gas was in 1915 during the Battle of Bolimów in Poland on January 31 . The German army shelled the Russian positions with xylyl bromide , the attack was relatively unsuccessful due to low temperature which prevented the gas from vaporizing and spreading. The medium version, the 17 cm mittlerer Minenwerfer (mMW; "17 cm (6.7 in) mid-sized mine launcher"),

12862-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

12980-668: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

13098-406: Was introduced in 1913. The model remained in reserve service until 1939-40. The light version of the weapon, the 7.58 cm Leichter Minenwerfer (LMW; "light mine launcher"), was still at the prototype stage when the war started, but rapidly entered production. The weapon was far more efficient than its artillery counterpart: in comparison, the 7.7 cm (3.0 in) FK 96 n/A needed to be towed by

13216-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

13334-580: Was made even more poignant when he received word that his last surviving son had been killed in action during the final assault on the hill. The Russians, who had no more than 1,500 men on the hill at any one time, lost over 6,000 killed and wounded. With a spotter on a phone line at the vantage point on 203 Meter Hill overlooking Port Arthur harbor, Nogi could now bombard the Russian fleet with heavy 11-inch (280 mm) howitzers with 500-pound (~220 kg) armor-piercing shells. He started systematically sinking

13452-527: Was protected by a massive redoubt and two earth-covered keeps reinforced by steel rails and timber, and completely surrounded by electrified barbed wire entanglements. It was also connected to the neighboring strongholds on False Hill and Akasakayama by trenches. On top of the lower peak was the fortified Russian command post in reinforced concrete. The Russian defenders entrenched on the 203-meter summit were commanded by Colonel Tretyakov, and were organized into five companies of infantry with machine gun detachments,

13570-583: Was the longest and most violent land battle of the Russo-Japanese War . Port Arthur , the deep-water port and Russian naval base at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria , had been widely regarded as one of the most strongly fortified positions in the world. However, during the First Sino-Japanese War , General Nogi Maresuke had taken the city from the forces of Qing China in only

13688-646: Was the centralization of the Japanese fire control, with the artillery batteries connected to the field headquarters by miles of telephone lines. Now well aware that the Russian Baltic Fleet was on its way, the Japanese Imperial Headquarters fully understood the necessity of destroying what Russian ships were still serviceable at Port Arthur. It thus became essential that 203 Meter Hill be captured without further delay, and political pressure began to mount for Nogi's replacement. The highest elevation within Port Arthur, designated "203 Meter Hill", overlooked

13806-659: Was unacceptable, as all responsibility for the war was due to imperial orders, and that Nogi must remain alive, at least as long as he himself lived. Nogi and his wife Shizuko committed suicide by seppuku shortly after the Emperor Meiji 's funeral cortege left the imperial palace on 13 September 1912. [REDACTED] Media related to Siege of Port Arthur at Wikimedia Commons 38°48′45″N 121°14′30″E  /  38.81250°N 121.24167°E  / 38.81250; 121.24167 Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )

13924-483: Was used to fill the shells. In any case, TNT explosive was reserved for use in artillery shells. Typically, the explosives used in minenwerfer shells were ammonium nitrate - carbon explosives. However, the sensitivity of the explosives occasionally made them detonate in the tube. There were a large number of these incidents, one of which claimed the life of Karl Völler, head designer of Rheinmetall, in 1916. These problems, however, were eventually overcome. Recognizing

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